Maiduguri - Suspected militants opened fire in a remote town
in northeast Nigeria, killing at least 15 people, witnesses and a
security source said.
The attack on Monday night targeted
Kautikari, near the Cameroon border, just 10 kilometres (6 miles) from
the village of Chibok, where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted in
April. They remain captives.
"The were about twenty, well-armed.
They came in four-wheel drive vehicles and some motorcycles. Initially, I
thought they were soldiers," survivor Jonah Umaru said by telephone.
"The man running behind me was gunned down as I was fleeing. Afterwards, there were 15 people lying dead in the streets."
Also read: Video shows Boko Haram killing captives
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 172 women and children and killed 35 other people this month near the same area.
Violence
by Boko Haram, which is fighting to establish an Islamic state in
Nigeria, has killed 10,340 people so far this year, according to a count
by the Council on Foreign Relations last month.
The five-year-old
insurgency has also displaced more than a million people from the
remote northeast. It is considered the gravest threat to the stability
of Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer and its neighbours.
Underscoring
the regional threat posed by the group, Cameroon's army said it had
killed at least 41 Boko Haram militants as it fought off a wave of
attacks along its border with Nigeria over the weekend.
Instability
in the northeast is likely to undermine efforts to hold Nigeria's
presidential and other elections across the region in February.
IT IS EASY JUST REGISTER .
